ISLAMABAD (AFP)--Pakistan will host Thursday an international donors' meeting to drum up funds for around 2 million people displaced by fighting between government forces and the Taliban, a cabinet minister said.
The meeting of representatives of international donors will be chaired by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in Islamabad, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira told a news conference without providing further details.
Pakistan previously announced 1 billion rupees ($12.5 million) in relief for the humanitarian crisis, but critics warn that is a fraction of the money needed for reconstruction and law enforcement to beat the Taliban.
Kaira said a total of 1.9 million people had been displaced from the northwest region of Malakand, which the government this year agreed to put under sharia law in an unsuccessful bid to end a Taliban insurgency.
The U.N. says around 1.5 million people have been displaced since May 2 during Pakistan's latest military onslaught against advancing Taliban, bringing to around 2 million the number displaced since last August.
As the conflict ploughs on with no end in sight, concerns are mounting about how to cope with the displaced, uprooted in what rights groups have called Pakistan's biggest movement of people since partition from India in 1947.
At a conference in Tokyo last month, donor countries pledged $5.28 billion for Pakistan, which U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke swiftly warned was "not enough" to stabilize the cash-strapped, nuclear-armed country.
Pakistan Confident Of Victory Over Taliban
Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani says his country is determined to win its war with the Taliban. Haqqani tells Steve Inskeep that international aid is needed to lure displaced civilians away from militant aid groups. He pledged that the aid money will not free up Pakistan's government to spend its own money on an expanded nuclear arsenal.
Nuclear program
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Satellite photos released show Pakistan has expanded two sites crucial to its nuclear program as part of an effort to bolster the destructive power of its atomic arsenal, a US arms control institute said.
The commercial images reveal a major expansion of a chemical plant complex near Dera Ghazi Khan that produces uranium hexafluoride and uranium metal, materials used to produce nuclear weapons, said analysts at the Institute for Science and International Security.
At a site near Rawalpindi, photos suggest the Pakistanis "have added a second plutonium separation plant adjacent to the old one," the ISIS report said.
Pakistan in recent years also has been building two new plutonium production reactors, it said.
"All together, these recent expansion activities indicate that Pakistan is indeed progressing in a strategic plan to improve the destructiveness and deliverability of its nuclear arsenal," the report said.
The expansion would enable Pakistan to build smaller, lighter plutonium-fission weapons and thermonuclear weapons that employ "plutonium as the nuclear trigger and enriched and natural enriched uranium in the secondary," it said.
The commercial photos of the chemical plant in Dera Ghazi Khan, taken on August 25 of last year, show new industrial buildings, new anti-aircraft installations and several new settling ponds as part of the expansion, ISIS said.
The satellite images follow confirmation from the top US military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, on Friday that Pakistan was expanding its nuclear arsenal.
Mullen on Monday said US military assistance to Pakistan was not being used by Islamabad to bolster its nuclear weapons program.
Given turmoil in Pakistan with the army waging war against Taliban militants in the northwest, ISIS said the security of the country's "nuclear assets remains in question.
"An expansion in nuclear weapons production capabilities needlessly complicates efforts to improve the security of Pakistan's nuclear assets," it said.
The Dera Ghazi Khan nuclear site in the past several years has been the target of at least one attack by more than a dozen gunmen, the institute said, citing media reports. Nearby railway tracks have also been bombed.
The attacks have been blamed on separatists from the nearby Pakistani province of Balochistan and not the Taliban, the report said.
"The brazen ground assault and nearby bombings are nevertheless troubling considering the role that the Dera Ghazi Khan plant plays in Pakistan's nuclear weapons program," it said.
CIA director Leon Panetta said Monday that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal was "pretty secure" amid concerns the weapons could fall into the hands of Taliban militants.
"Right now, we are confident that the Pakistanis do have a pretty secure approach to trying to protect these weapons. But it is something that we continue to watch because obviously the last thing we want is for the Taliban to have access to nuclear weapons in Pakistan," Panetta said in Los Angeles.
The ISIS report urged the US government to persuade Pakistan to halt production of fissile material and join talks for a treaty that would ban the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium.
"As an interim step, the United States should press both India and Pakistan to suspend any production of fissile material for nuclear weapons," it said.
Pakistan has roughly 60 to 100 nuclear weapons that can be delivered by attack aircraft and ballistic missiles, the report added.
Clinton: $110M in Pakistan aid 'essential'
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced a $110 million aid package for Pakistan on Tuesday that will support international efforts to relieve a humanitarian crisis in the Swat Valley that has left about 2 million people temporarily homeless.
"Providing this assistance is not only the right thing to do, but we believe that it is essential to global security," she said.
The U.S. military will deliver the aid, which was requested by Pakistan. It will include 30,000 family relief kits, 5,000 tents, water trucks and food. The aid money will also buy locally made products to boost Pakistani merchants
"Providing this assistance is not only the right thing to do, but we believe that it is essential to global security," she said.
The U.S. military will deliver the aid, which was requested by Pakistan. It will include 30,000 family relief kits, 5,000 tents, water trucks and food. The aid money will also buy locally made products to boost Pakistani merchants
Full scorecard
Australia 1st Innings
| Batsmen | Runs | Balls | Mins | 4s | 6s | SS | SR | |
| Shane Watson | lbw U.Gul | 33 | 14 | 20 | 5 | 0 | 12 | 235.71 |
| Brad Haddin | c U.Gul b S.Malik | 24 | 27 | 46 | 2 | 0 | 14 | 88.89 |
| James Hopes | lbw S.Afridi | 6 | 9 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 66.67 |
| Andrew Symonds | lbw S.Afridi | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| David Hussey | b S.Afridi | 4 | 11 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 36.36 |
| Callum Ferguson | st K.Akmal b S.Malik | 8 | 9 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 88.89 |
| Marcus North | b U.Gul | 20 | 21 | 32 | 1 | 0 | 15 | 95.24 |
| Nathan Hauritz | c S.Malik b U.Gul | 2 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 28.57 |
| Brett Lee | b U.Gul | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Nathan Bracken | not out | 3 | 11 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 27.27 |
| Ben Hilfenhaus | c S.Afridi b S.Ajmal | 2 | 8 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 25 |
| Extras: | 6 | b: 0, lb: 3, w:1, nb: 2 | ||||||
| Total: | 108 | (Overs 19.5) | ||||||
| Fall of wickets | ||
| 1/42 | Shane Watson (33) | Partnership: (Brad Haddin) 42 runs, 20 mins |
| 2/61 | James Hopes (6) | Partnership: (Brad Haddin) 19 runs, 13 mins |
| 3/61 | Andrew Symonds (0) | Partnership: (Brad Haddin) 0 runs, 1 mins |
| 4/69 | David Hussey (4) | Partnership: (Brad Haddin) 8 runs, 9 mins |
| 5/73 | Brad Haddin (24) | Partnership: (Callum Ferguson) 4 runs, 3 mins |
| 6/85 | Callum Ferguson (8) | Partnership: (Marcus North) 12 runs, 10 mins |
| 7/94 | Nathan Hauritz (2) | Partnership: (Marcus North) 9 runs, 9 mins |
| 8/94 | Brett Lee (0) | Partnership: (Marcus North) 0 runs, 3 mins |
| 9/105 | Marcus North (20) | Partnership: (Nathan Bracken) 11 runs, 12 mins |
| 10/108 | Ben Hilfenhaus (2) | Partnership: (Nathan Bracken) 3 runs, 7 mins |
| Bowler | Overs | Maidens | Runs | Wickets | Econ |
| Shoaib Akhtar | 2 | 0 | 18 | 0 | 9.00 |
| Sohail Tanvir | 3 | 0 | 32 | 0 | 10.66 |
| Umar Gul | 4 | 0 | 8 | 4 | 2.00 |
| Saeed Ajmal | 3.5 | 0 | 19 | 1 | 4.95 |
| Shahid Afridi | 4 | 1 | 14 | 3 | 3.50 |
| Shoaib Malik | 3 | 0 | 14 | 2 | 4.66 |
Pakistan 1st Innings
| Batsmen | Runs | Balls | Mins | 4s | 6s | SS | SR | |
| Salman Butt | c J.Hopes b B.Hilfenhaus | 16 | 12 | 19 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 133.33 |
| Ahmed Shehzad | c sub b B.Lee | 4 | 12 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 33.33 |
| Kamran Akmal | not out | 59 | 42 | 53 | 5 | 3 | 26 | 140.48 |
| Misbah ul-Haq | c N.Bracken b N.Hauritz | 24 | 32 | 45 | 1 | 0 | 18 | 75 |
| Shoaib Malik On strike | not out | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Shahid Afridi | ||||||||
| Fawad Alam | ||||||||
| Umar Gul | ||||||||
| Sohail Tanvir | ||||||||
| Shoaib Akhtar | ||||||||
| Saeed Ajmal | ||||||||
| Extras: | 6 | b: 0, lb: 0, w:5, nb: 1 | ||||||
| Total: | 3/109 | (Overs 16.2) | ||||||
| Fall of wickets | ||
| 1/17 | Ahmed Shehzad (4) | Partnership: (Salman Butt) 17 runs, 14 mins |
| 2/23 | Salman Butt (16) | Partnership: (Kamran Akmal) 6 runs, 5 mins |
| 3/108 | Misbah ul-Haq (24) | Partnership: (Kamran Akmal) 85 runs, 47 mins |
| Bowler | Overs | Maidens | Runs | Wickets | Econ |
| Brett Lee | 4 | 0 | 22 | 1 | 5.50 |
| Nathan Bracken | 3 | 0 | 24 | 0 | 8.00 |
| Ben Hilfenhaus | 4 | 0 | 20 | 1 | 5.00 |
| Nathan Hauritz | 3.2 | 0 | 20 | 1 | 6.00 |
| James Hopes | 2 | 0 | 23 | 0 | 11.50 |
Twenty 20
Match Details
International - Pakistan v Australia
May 08, 2009
- Location:
- Dubai Sports City Cricket Stadium
- Weather:
- Fine
- Umpires:
- Aleem Dar, Zameer Haider
- Pitch:
- Normal
- Third Umpire:
- Nadeem Ghauri
- Outfield:
- Good
- Match Referee:
- Jeff Crowe
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